


PRomance

by blueberry01120



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Thor (Marvel), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Bigotry & Prejudice, Caught, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Intersex Loki (Marvel), Loki is Lady Gaga, M/M, Odin is Steven Spielberg, Omega Loki (Marvel), Omega Verse, Pop Star Loki, References to Depression, Rockist Thor, Tony is a Disney Heir, background pepperony, celebrity cameos, rock star thor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25724389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry01120/pseuds/blueberry01120
Summary: You know who Thor Odinson is. He's your dad's favorite artist, half your morning jog playlist, and that chant at every single sports match there is? He's the lead singer of the song that came from. He's rock, Rock and Roll. Real music. Like, that guy can shred.Thor knows who Thor Odinson is. He's the greatest musician to do music, arguably the only one still doing it. Not a performer or an entertainer but a musician. Not a Britney Spears. Definitely not a Loki. Never a Loki. Because Pop is music's death knell, and he'll be damned if he needs gimmicks when the music, his music does the work.The PR relationship he's agreed to - for the sake of his music - it might be with Loki, but Thor is not and never will be a Loki.Because he's Thor Odinson, music's savior. He might save Loki while he's at it too.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been going through a purge of all these works in eternal progress and forcing myself to finish them to build some writerly discipline and to burn some time when I'm stalling on other things in life like life itself. This is probably 5 years old as of earliest proverbial brick laying? I never thought it'd see the white light of AO3's day, but you know what? The world is in a state of disrepair and life is definitely feeling it, so why not?

Music was fucking dead.

The body had been dismembered by those 2/3rd life crisis-stricken fucks in their blazers and their strappy sneakers and one-armed hugs and Gucci sunglasses, money addicts sniffing around for the Next Big Thing they could package in plastic and peddle to the masses through payola because they knew what was best — for their bank accounts. Cunts, the lot of them.

If the likes of The Charming Leprechaun and the three flavors of pop sex bot on the scene were up for Album of the Year alongside him there was a fucking problem.

“Where’s the real talent?” Thor asked, and he got the usual spiel. It wasn’t his speed. But it was good to a lot of people, and who was he to say they were wrong? The mother-fucking best songwriter of his generation was who he was. People had food to put on their plates. They didn’t have time to sift through the piles of shit served to them on the radio and Spotify and Apple Music and all those places, and they didn’t need to because once upon a time, back in the time of Janis and Jimmy, the radio could be trusted. Ed Sheeran and Loki the current one-named wonder wouldn’t have heard the light of day. But once Rubin and Iovine and those fucks realized they could trickle more and more shit into the pie till the whole thing reeked of it and people would still blindly eat, it all went to hell.

Erik’d tried to explain it away as, “This happens.” After so many years in the industry, you got cynical, “a bit jaded.” He’d said, “Dylan went searching in the first place ‘cause of it. Then he found religion.” Bob’d tapped out when he could’ve put a stop to it before it’d gotten this bad that a chick whose “hit” song had a fucking village of songwriters to put 150 unique words together had crowds creaming themselves as she got her and her ball-gown out of the car ahead of his. Bob’d failed them.

Thor stepped his ass out onto the red carpet for the procession. Turn here, Thor. Show us music’s last fucking hope. Ryan Seacrest leant the mic toward him with his off-the-rack, executive-approved smile and asked him how he felt. “You look good.” If that wasn’t the fucking problem with this industry. He told Seacrest, “I’ll feel better when I win.”

“Confident as always.”

“I’ve got every reason to be.”

He had karaoke singers and tribute acts to Cat Stevens tribute acts “competing” against him. Come the fuck on. Bolt wasn’t sweating paraplegics in the charity race as much as he fronted for the cameras. Thor was a musician though. Not an actor like all these debutants wanting an EGOT for lip-syncing and roboting through life.

The current batch of money-makers bowed at his feet, grasped his hand like fornicating bishops before the Pope as they told him, “It’s an honor to even be here to tonight with you,” and made way for the next ass kissers and desperate for his stamp of approval to hit back at the last holdouts in the critics' circles that rightfully refused to cosign all this bullshit. Thor had vodka shots from his assistants to down to dim the feedback and keep the bitching for the cameramen to catch and broadcast to the world at a minimum.

“This is only three and a half hours,” was Erik’s take on a pep-talk. “You’ve spent more time doing worse.”

“Worse in your opinion. It was fun for me.”

Darcy reported in with new numbers for Thor’s people — aka his assistants, her, and Erik — to never call. “You’re becoming a mean old man. I know 35 is like 80 in Hollywood years, but you could try to not act like everyone is an untalented hack. Come on. Madonna? Sufjan Stevens? You’d make amazing music with them.”

Maybe. Maybe not. The crowd flow changed, and it was time for Thor to go out and add a pint of legitimacy to this shitshow. Make that an ounce. The Michael fucking Jackson rip-off — and that was an insult to MJ, rest his soul - they — and Thor loved Erik but it was fucking Erik. He was agent to them both which Thor didn’t agree with in the first place — but Erik had taken the media’s narrative and run with it — kept trying to associate with Thor because not all of what came out of Scandinavia was good was put next to him.

Loki must’ve known ahead of time, came equipped with Wayfarers to wear inside like the cunt he was so he didn’t stir up any shit when he gave Thor the eye like he never could help himself. It hurt, didn’t it, living in Thor’s shadow, having Thor there to remind everybody what a fucking joke he was. No one with real talent needed all the costumes and the theatrics. Not in this day and age.

Erik sat in the seat between them. Silver fucking linings.

James Corden emceed the thing, a comedian for this comedy show. He did his little number, had about the level of talent as the most of the nominees tonight really, and went into the sell of why the fence-riders should stay tuned. They had Rihanna and Beyoncé, randoms from some girl band, randoms from some boy band, and “the Viking Invasion continues,” he said, turning attention to Thor and Loki. “Tonight, the rivalry between Norway and Iceland continues. As a football fan — soccer for you heathens — I’ve seen how tense the matches between those two countries can get, and I will just say, leave out a hockey stick and rotting fish on your doorstep and when the Norwegian and Icelandic hordes pass by if neither one of them wins, you’ll be spared.”

Soulless performance everyone stood up to pretend was good, predictable winner, another soulless performance, and so on. At a commercial break, Erik got up with Loki to go prepare him for his own soulless performance. Loki pretended Thor didn’t exist when he slid past him, and Thor rewarded him with, “Break a leg.”

Turning the lights off equaled drama. Or so they’d convinced all the ones who shut up like good cogs.

Welcome to fucking Cirque du Soleil. Green fog clogged up the stage, and ooh, mysterious figures doing interpretive dance. The music wasn’t the centerpiece of these performances. It was all about the personality. They couldn’t have given half a damn about the bass backbone some producer tailored for replays from the bassheads cut off from the passing fad of brostep, only that it meant Loki was coming soon. And there he was when the fog cleared in some stylist’s Frankenstein of a spacesuit and that fake military shit aped off of MJ, bare scrawny chest glittering in the spotlight.

Loki sang live. He sang in tune. A lot of people could do that, and those people weren’t up there. What was compelling about another beat to dry hump someone on the dancefloor to? Nothing. Nothing so Loki had to compensate for that with all this dancing and vocal acrobatics because he had something to prove not to all these people but to himself. Deep down he knew he was no different than those cashiers at Shake Shack and Nandos sliding wrapped grease back across the counter.

“Did you clap?” Erik asked when he returned.

Thor shrugged and said, “I might’ve.”

Erik bitched under his breath about how Twitter was going to have a field day with that one. Let them. He didn’t clap for anyone who didn’t deserve it.

That was why he clapped when they announced his name for Best Rock Performance and — why not kill two birds with one stone — they got him for Best Rock album too.

“Other than me, some great musicians have won this award, and it’s an honor to share this distinction with them,” said Thor. “Thank you.”

They sent out a seat filler because he couldn’t be assed to go back for the next few awards — an old faithful, Loki, another industry plant — before his window to show off some real talent. He got handed his chromed-out Strat and small-talked with his touring band while Corden made the homoerotic jokes because Thor as the big-dicked alpha sex symbol was easier on the conscience. “And welcome to the stage — Thor performing his hit number one single ‘The Man.’”

Thor saved rock and roll.

That was the tagline of his career, but up there, carrying the baton from Chuck and Lennon/McCartney, Thor held Rock in his hands. Fuck yes, he deserved a fucking pat on the back from the world. If he wanted to wave his dick around about how great of a job he’d been doing, he was letting it flail, one strum at a time. Thor sang and played real fucking music, music not taped together by committee one-fucking synonym for party-by-one but music like it was meant to be — from the heart, scribbled into his notebook in the back of a tour bus after Niles Rodgers jammed on bass and told him, “You’re doing something here, something you don’t see anymore,” like Paul and Joe Perry and all of these fucking archangels had.

He got a standing ovation.

“While you’re up here, might as well get this out of the way.” Corden came on with a Grammy for Best Rock Song. “Here you go, Thor. For ‘The Man.’”

Fuck you, Twenty One fucking Pilots, you non-rock fuckers.

His fingers threw up devil horns for the photo op with his four so-far (one from the pre-show) with Darcy backstage. He agreed to go trade out for the seat filler ‘cause they needed those shots of him in the crowd when it came to AOTY. Erik met him with a hug.

Drake took Song, shouted out Thor (and Loki who he’d made that shit song with last year.)

Thor collected Record of the Year with a “fuck you” smile and thank you to Drake for the shout-out. “I hope to be back up here shortly.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Erik said, tickled pink from trying not to laugh, when Thor sat back down. “They might think you’re cocky.”

He meant “know.”

One last performance, this one by Drake.

AOTY time, presented by Adele and the mother-fucking Ringo.

“And the winner of Album of the Year is…”

“Kacey Musgraves ‘Golden Hour.’”

Well. Thor clapped.

Could’ve been worse. Better too but could’ve — it could’ve been worse.

“It’s time to go have some fun.” Thor patted Erik on the shoulder, preemptive apology for whatever fuckery would be haunting Erik and Darcy in the tabloids tomorrow, but Thor’d been good tonight.

If the savior of rock and roll wanted to get sloshed, he was gonna get sloshed.

**#**

He pounded back a bottle of Jack and gummed some of the China White one of those EDM guys — something about fucking space or the other — palmed him when he showed up to Max’s after party. Fucking Max Martin, Max the butcher of pop, Sweden’s fucking pride. He said it paid the bills. “If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else. I do my best.” Yeah, “A solid shit is better than a liquid one, sure.” Thor was handed a tall shot and a joint. He didn’t mind if he did. Max said he had ideas. “Come to a camp. Never too many royalties.” Thor had a fucking soul. Sorry.

He got a guitar and told them to turn that fucking shit off they were playing. The coffee table was a stage. He played them real fucking music, fucking Jimmy. They creamed themselves. He jumped down from the table and handed off the guitar to the cantaloupe tits, went and did a shot from between a massive pair one of these fucking rappers paid for. Worth it. The water was flowing. “You should’ve won album of the year,” they were telling him, and Thor fucking knew that, but no skin off his back. Music was dead. He’d known that. That was confirmation.

Someone came over to him talking about he needed to slow down. Fuck that. Let him have his fun. That’d been ten hours of horseshit and they couldn’t even give him the award he deserved for it. Bullshit. Darcy was there, and she was handing him water. He told her, he didn’t want to do this award show shit, and in the future, book him for something else. He’d do a conference call.

Some Studio 54 couch stretched out around him. Cushions had a lock around his ass. His window had been rolled down on a humid day, drying off the fog over top the bills dusted in coke residue and knocked over half-finished shot glasses. A club, they were at some club.

Thor popped open the cap on the bottled water tucked into his side. No phone of course. Darcy dispossessed him when the dangers of a drunken rant on social media about label bureaucracy and fucking pop pretenders in rock and roll crossed 50%. Without a clock, there not being some aspiring model or model-with-higher-aspirations on all fours with her cleavage in his lap put them past 2:00 am at least. After 2:00 am, the leftovers had regrouped in big gathering areas, which Thor would’ve gone into if he took that right, for the Round 2. More shots and the new influx of pills and potions to get you back to chase off the comedown from earlier’s peak.

First things first, he needed a breath of air not littered with someone else’s fuck. A back exit had a brick wedged into it, so he didn’t set off a fire alarm like that one year.

Alleys were where real Hollywood was. The rejection phone calls, the drug overdoses.

Funny that Thor’s eyes met those infamous green ones out here.

Loki looked away, putting himself into profile against the wall. White light outlined all the painterly angles of him because music had become a beauty pageant. 80s rock-stars had put models in their music videos, and those models had gotten bright ideas that paved the way for would-be-models like Loki to come and take up musical space. What, imposter effect getting too much for him so he had to come out here?

“It’s impolite to not clap for people,” said that Joe Strummer bassline. Throw in some Jagger hip thrusts and mic sucking, and you had Loki’s speaking voice. “I clapped for you.”

“I don’t care about polite. You don’t either. You pretend to though because it’s your ‘image.’ The classy Don Juan.” Thor interrupted Loki’s dramatic wall-gazing with himself. “That’s gotta be tiring, all that pretending.”

Loki had a face that knew how to do “edgy but pretty” so well it struggled to do anything else. One note. “I don’t know. I saw Brad Pitt in there. You should ask him. He’s a far better actor than I am.”

“Better musician too I bet.”

Loki didn’t have enough lip to pull off the smirk, but there it was, a quirk at the corners that Thor could’ve just put his thumbs against and forced back down. “You should be flattered that they’d think of you when I put out an album that revolutionized pop music.”

“You’re joking.”

He came away from his wall, and the height was an illusion. His nose was at Thor’s mouth, his mouth at Thor’s chin. His eyelashes half-covered his eyes because he had to look up at Thor. A visual representation of their respective talent. “You know I’m not,” he said. “You think because you sing songs about how amazing you are with an electric guitar in your hand that you make real music. You might look like Cobain with the hair and the eyes and the flannels, but rock might as well have died with him.”

“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. Typical. I’ve heard your ‘songs.’ You have nothing interesting to say.”

What? “I’m a pretty little fucktoy. Watch me shake my tight little ass. Don’t you want to fuck me?” Songwriting had fallen so goddamned far.

“I give people what they want to hear.”

“Only because they’ve been brainwashed.”

“And they weren’t before? If they want trash,” said Loki straight into Thor’s face like Thor needed help reading his lips, fruity and sharp like wine, “I will give them sugar-coated, sprinkle-covered trash with a cherry on top. They’re welcome.”

“Bullshit.”

“The critical acclaim says otherwise. These same critics also said your album wasn’t all that bad. Were they wrong then?”

“They say a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“Convenient.” If his words weren’t enough, Loki’s body challenged him. He’d be nothing to one of Thor’s arms, all of his weight, ribs right up against his skin like knuckles, hip bones too. Thor would be his fucking god. “Since I have no plans on going anywhere anytime soon, I think it’s better for both of us if you get over yourself now. It’ll make it hurt less when I inevitably do beat you for Album of the Year.”

“I’d fucking Kanye you, man. But you don’t need to worry. That’ll never happen.”

Loki got serious. “I’m a generational talent, and it would do you well to recognize that.”

“Or what?”

Loki backed himself up against the wall. Thor just gave him incentive. He couldn’t take his eyes off Thor’s mouth. What was he looking for, hm? “I can…” His eyes fluttered up. “…make your life very difficult or very easy, Thor.”

The fucker’d been drinking wine. Probably fucking Cabernet Sauvignon, long and French like this designer bullshit that had to be sewed onto him how it left nothing to Thor’s hands’ imagination. Loki’s didn’t have the same advantage, and he touched freezing cold onto Thor’s lower back. Loki’s mouth had been begging for something else to do but bullshit, so Thor gave it his tongue which Loki tried to suck out of his. Teeth bit into it, and Thor took the handfuls of ass Loki had and squeezed them, breaking Loki’s hold on his tongue so he could gasp — try to. Thor shut off his access to the air to with a better option.

White skin like this would bruise for fucking eternity. Loki’d be covering up the kisses Thor’s teeth gave his neck for weeks. The mysterious pop star in turtlenecks so his fans could keep imagining they had a chance at the hard cock rubbing on Thor’s thigh. Thor fucked against his, gave him a feel of what he was going to finish like he’d started.

He was shoved at by the hip and shifted back, spared Loki’s hands some space, and Loki fucking unzipped and unbuttoned like magic and reached a hand into his fly. Loki’s cool hand on his cock was a relief. The pale skin over those thin, long fingers with his needy, so-hard-it-was-almost-magenta cock underneath. He had to see their cocks together. He told Loki how stupid his fucking clothes were, nibbled on his ear, ended up breaking a zipper but fuck it. Loki’s fault.

Loki had a cock to gag on. He liked it when Thor shared the wetness at the tip of it down over the meat of it, freed the head of from his foreskin it to shine. That was a sound to loop in the underbelly of some mid-album interlude, before some track to fuck to. Rubbing his thumb down the ridge there kept it coming. He’d love having his balls played with.

Where they would’ve been, Thor’s fingertips got wet. Hair — like Thor liked too, a little natural — couldn’t disguise the gates to paradise. Loki was a damned omega.

Loki was waiting to see what Thor thought about that. What Thor thought? This, in the greedy squeeze of it, was where all Loki’s warmth was. Loki fucking loved Thor’s two fingers. He told him “deeper.” Thor could do deeper. He had rivers in his palm, and if Thor crossed the wires in his head, this was Loki’s cunt instead of his hand on his cock, and fuck if that wasn’t glory.

“I bet you want to fuck me, hm?” Didn’t take a Ph.D. “I’ll fuck you,” Loki said, “if you have a condom.”

The trusty breast pocket condom.

His fingers missed Loki, but they took one for the team. Thor had to break a few world records in the process putting it on. Must’ve been in his genes. Because he got Loki turned around up against the wall quick too. His heart was a fucking ticking time bomb at this point. Loki’s bullshit pants did him no favors, meant some fumbling that led to skin-to-skin contact Thor’s cock was all too invested in, but Thor eventually got it. They were coming down Loki’s perky ass, clearing the bottom of it, and strands, thick, milky-white strands stretched from the lips of Loki’s pussy wearing that same black hair as his head to the crotch of his underwear. And they were fucking plastered with it, the nectar of the fucking gods. Thor’s thumbs worked magic under Loki’s cheeks. When they peeled apart, outer lips of his pussy going with it, Thor couldn’t resist kneeling down and breaking that glob of cream peeking out his little hole with his tongue. Like butter. Butter and lemon and the meaning of life for Thor’s cock.

Thor plastered himself to Loki’s back and rubbed his cock in that beautiful mess around Loki’s cunt, getting a hint of it all wrapped up. One day maybe. One day. Now though he guided the tip into that fire. Tight didn’t feel like the right word. Tight was too loose. The size-difference was one thing, but it was like there wasn’t any space. There had to be. Thor had to get inside him. If it killed him. And Loki wanted nothing more than that too, was pressing back onto it as much as Thor was pressing into him.

Loki’s hand flew off the wall, smacked against Thor’s thigh, and shit, those fingernails dug in. Loki had a surprising grip on him. “Fuck me,” Loki was saying. The lock he had around Thor’s cockhead loosened up so beautifully. And that heat—fuck—that heat was spreading down Thor’s cock, squeezing the hell out of it. “Fuck” was the only word he knew that came close to cutting it, and he drew it out the heavenly eon it took for him to run out of cock to give.

“Thor” came out broken and eager, and if not for the nails Loki had in him, a side dish of pain to keep him from plummeting off the edge, right then and there, Thor would’ve disappointed Loki so damned hard.

He had no plans to do that.

He fucked into him. Slow and shallow, pulling out to corona, letting it catch inside him, then shoving in all the way. The noises Loki made for him. He couldn’t do it, deprive either of them of it. Loki wouldn’t let him anyway. Thor coaxed him open enough Loki pushed back to meet him halfway, progressively getting harder and faster, and they were properly fucking now, skin slapping skin, sweating sticking them together.

The cum in his balls needed out.

Loki was so fucking hot and tight. So, fucking tight, and he was telling Thor, “Yes, Thor, I’m going to— ” What?

Crush Thor’s cock, that was what he was going to do. Doing. Cumming—painting the wall with white ropes. And that was it. Loki cumming for Thor, around him, milking it out of Thor. But that was a test. It would’ve been so easy, just slide it in as far as it would go, let himself go, but Thor was going to cum, and he was going to do it _in_ Loki. Loki’s pussy was trying its hardest to trip him up, clamping down so hard on him that when he pushed it was sparks flying. Thor could’ve cum. Fuck, he could’ve cum. His dick bone was gnashing the one around Loki’s pussy, but he was there, as deep as he could go.

Everything he had, he poured it all into Loki. That perfect pussy. He’d stay here forever, pumping Loki so full of his cum. He should’ve been overflowing. His Loki, filling him so good.

He didn’t mean to knot him. Shit.

“Didn’t mean to knot you,” he told Loki.

“Whatever.” Loki’s cunt was keeping pace with Loki’s shoulders while he caught his breath. “How long does this last?”

He didn’t answer because Loki wouldn’t have liked it, and he was going to lounge on the euphoria keeping the world all soft and cottony without Loki tearing into him. And in any case, he wasn’t in a rush.

Loki seemed to be. He pulled himself off before Thor got the chance to pull out.

“So. Omega, huh?”

Loki’d done a good job hiding the broken zipper. Could’ve said he’d had practice. “Yes.” How could someone be defensive so quick after that? Impressive. “I’m a breeder just like you.”

“We’re more than breeders.”

“Tell the world that.”

The door hit the block still wedged there behind him.

Couldn’t say the night had been a total wash. Couldn’t say that at all.


	2. "Last Night's Snow"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Loki POV!

Mistakes made at a Grammy’s after-party in the throes of ennui should’ve been maudlin covers of jazz standards that’d haunt him in the shouts of fans during encores or accepting that glass of celebratory Chardonnay dosed with GHB that’d decrease his concept of personal space with loose-lipped models, not screwing Thor Odinson in a back-alley.

He doused his mouth with tequila shots from his hotel’s fridge and poached himself with the shower’s settings turned to “sauna.” Thor had gotten around. Who was to say that Loki hadn’t picked up something, a herpes-like something? He’d done well to avoid that with some admittedly close calls, and it’d be his luck — losing to Kacey Musgraves; Loki was going to need to retool, tear out of all of the walls and the foundation too if need be — that Thor would be the fateful kiss/fuck. A souvenir: welcome to the thousand plus club of people who’ve hooked-up with Thor Odinson. Enjoy the recurring bumps!

To think Herpes might’ve been the smallest consequence of that. That called for an anguished drop to his bed to rake his fingernails through his soaking hair. Only fitting that he look as pitiful as he felt. If Thor told a single soul, this Taj Mahal that Loki’d built would be Jenga blocks disassembled by the newfound curiosity that the public would have about that extra hole he had. As if Thor hadn’t already forgotten about it and gone back to the party for an after-dinner mint in some model or the other.

At least a curiosity of his had been scratched. As big of an arrogant dickhead Thor was, he was… good-looking, and you knew the rumors: most alphas had massive cocks — which Thor did — and Loki could be a size queen on occasion. The blow or hand job expected after Thor’d come out would’ve checked off that box while also maintaining Loki’s below-the-waist anonymity, but Thor likely wouldn’t tell and neither was Loki going to, so no harm, no foul.

When was the last time he’d gotten laid without an NDA? Years and years. It wasn’t all bad.

Kacey Musgraves might’ve stolen his AOTY, but you knew what she couldn’t take from him? The extra hour of sleep Barton would be letting him have like he did after these award shows not in small part because it was one less hour they’d spend together. Loki silenced his phone to silence his 7:00 alarm. Sweet dreams to him. He deserved them.

Shaking pulled him from them.

“Loki,” Barton said in a voice too loud for what little sunlight filtered in through the drawn curtains.

It wasn’t 8:00.

He finally remembered Loki was not hearing impaired. “Hey, there’s something you need to see.”

Loki’s phone woke up too. Dozens of texts and missed calls. The latest did not say congratulations.

“ _The video…”_

What video?

Praise fingerprint scanning for unlocking his phone. A news headline in the top drawer said, “ _Thor and Loki Celebrate Scandalously after Grammy Wins!”_

No. He knew what he was clicking into, but the thumbnail solidifying into the blond hair draped over broad shoulders in a black tux and the outer ring of him plastered against the black-washed brick behind the club was his heart-stopping.

He asked the universe once and for all, “What in the ever-living fuck?”

**T**

He only got impressions of hangovers.

His grievance with the sunlight went away when he drank the glass on his nightstand.

No phone in sight.

He owned the day. After the award shows, they knew better than to schedule events he’d no-show out of principle of putting his shift in the night before with few (but justified) complaints. He’d gym, go down to the studio — after he called Mom. He needed his phone for that.

He called for Röskva. He only got his echo in return.

The fuck was this about his living room being converted into a press room?

Erik took a break from the laptop and phone he had in his hand to notice Thor first. He could’ve looked less like the world had ended.

All of them — Darcy, Thialfi, Röskva, Heimdall — could have.

He asked, “What?”

“Nice of you to look aware now,” said Heimdall.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Heimdall looked at them first like one of them should’ve volunteered to answer Thor, but it was him that got up and marched up to Thor, lead in boots ‘cause he’d never even taken them off, and after a sigh, held out a phone but only half way. “Are you sure you don’t want breakfast first?”

He stepped off the last stair and took the damned phone.

T-fucking-MZ, head vultures: _“Thor and Loki Celebrate Scandalously after Grammy Wins!”_

“Press play.”

The trash logo cut to what some zooming out placed as that alleyway Thor had been in last night, and the frame closed in on the blond hair that was currently on his head and down his back in last night’s suit. The outside of Loki’s face, his hair, his arm in the green jacket he’d been in were visible from behind him. They were talking. Thor remembered that part. The fucker responsible for the shaking camera gasped. They were closer now, he and Loki. They could’ve been talking still, very closely, but it was safe to say anyone shown would’ve guessed — correctly — kissing. Thor remembered what this led to too, and no, the feed didn’t cut when Thor turned Loki toward the wall. This cunt, saying to themselves “Oh my god” like they had any room to judge or react, voyeuristic fuck, they didn’t stop filming. That would’ve required some decency, a soul, something human. They were fucking pond scum.

Loki’s hand was searching the wall for something to grab onto, the universal signal of feeling fucking good, and Thor couldn’t watch anymore.

“I’m fucking suing. I’m taking them fucking down.”

“We’ll get there,” said Heimdall. “We need to weather the media storm first.”

“Where’s my phone?” he asked. Röskva, he was paying her to know and Thialfi to watch his back which included his phone. “I need to call my mom.”

What the hell had the headlines told her? All her lessons about not letting this industry hollow him out of the man she’d taught him to be, and he got caught fucking in an alleyway.

There it was on the table.

“It’s dead,” said Darcy. “Also, she called about two hours ago. She was mostly concerned that you hadn’t told her you were dating her fave. I told her you’d get back to her when you woke up from your celebratory coma.”

Silver fucking linings. Mom’s questionable taste had finally paid off. She’d be crushed when he set her straight, but for now, it would do.

Thor had a seat he fucking needed the hell out of. “How bad is it?”

“It’s been trending on Twitter since TMZ released it this morning, and that was around 7:00,” said Erik. It was 12:00 now. “Well, ‘Thor and Loki’ is trending first then it’s ‘Loki’ then ‘Thor.’”

“Loki has Stans,” Darcy explained.

“The video, it looks damning,” said Erik. “There’s not a lot of ways to spin this without outright admitting the truth, and for both your careers, that could have lasting damage.”

“Because rock fans are homophobes and presentists?” Thor asked.

“More of the average music consumer likes fairytale narratives, and there’s nothing very _Sleeping Beauty_ about you doing that in an alley behind a club. It might make them think—”

“It looks classless,” said… Loki the Old Hollywood Widow in all-black, sunglasses too.

Heimdall, who’d gone and disappeared now that Thor thought of it, had clearly let them in, him and she Leonardo DiCaprio, Loki’s manager/minder who’d been on his other side last night now that Thor remembered it. He did PR for anyone with a drop of Norwegian blood, and he was thinking of that as an advantage instead of a con for once. It might’ve been. “The decoy cars we had come in 20-minute increments that past hour let us get him from the car inside before the snipers could get any pictures over the gate.”

Loki’s manager took one hand out of her pocket to shake Thialfi’s hand and while Loki hung back, she had the respect to introduce herself officially. “Sigyn.” And alpha. “Nice to meet you.”

“Thor. You too.”

She couldn’t be gone from Loki’s side too long. Loki was fragile. His precious image had been lit on fire and thrown into a trashcan last night.

Loki chose the chair between two of Thor’s Stratocasters as far away from Thor as he could get without having to stand. Fine with Thor.

Röskva proved she was usually his favorite person for a reason bringing Thor some breakfast.

“We could still try the mistaken identity thing,” said Darcy. “There’s no actual view of Thor’s face. It’s LA. There are, like, no less than five tall, muscle-y blond guys with long hair on Venice Beach as we speak.”

“We’ve spoken.” Heimdall was referring to himself and Loki. “He never wants a public romance, but if he had to, it’ll be with someone of similar or better stature than him. It goes along with his image.”

“Fuck me for wanting the world to know I have standards,” Loki replied, and that wasn’t the first time he’d said that to Heimdall, jackass tone, phrasing, and all.

Sigyn hit him on the shoulder but he needed something harder than that to faze him.

“You chose well with who you screwed in public,” said Heimdall.

“I’ve done worse in alleyways in dozens of cities, and never has it been recorded. I am tactful.”

These facial of expressions of Sigyn’s were gold. Too bad Loki was missing them.

“You act like I’m getting caught up in shit on camera every other week,” said Thor.

“You have more times than the never I have.” Loki’s composure had shattered on the floor, and the shards were crackling under his pacing feet. “I am a consummate professional. This, this is all an act. I never — ever — cross the streams. The rumors planted about who I’m dating, those are all press. The asexuality of my pansexuality, it’s a priceless marketing tool. And now, now I am like all the other musical fucking hookers. And that’s my presentation aside.”

“You said it, not me.”

Loki was grinding Thor’s soul between his teeth behind the shades.

“Honestly,” said Darcy, “it’s pretty hot. Like, I’ve seen some celebrity sex tapes, and while it’s all implied, this one is the best. You two look like you were having a lot of fun. Everyone wants sex like that. Sadly, most people don’t, so seeing you two going at it still has the whole out-of-reach factor.”

“She has a point,” said Heimdall.

Loki sucked on that, cheeks going dangerously empty. “So, what? Do you suggest we go on a press tour to tell the world that we had the great sex of their dreams that one time? What’s compelling about that? Two Breeders fucking. What makes it all okay?”

Erik and Heimdall silently speaking to one another through their eyes spelled big news.

“If it’s a snapshot of a bigger picture,” said Heimdall.

The tray went on the couch beside Thor, and the mouthful of food was a slog getting down.

A nervous smile broke Loki’s lips before he fixed them back closed. “You’re kidding, yes? You don’t mean what I think you mean.”

“And what is it you think I mean?”

Loki was quiet. He faced this direction, and he was quiet. He was staring at Thor.

“That’s a terrible idea,” he told Heimdall.

“Is it or do you just wish it were?”

“It’s a great idea,” Erik said. “Thor — Loki“— he had to include him too—“you are arguably two of the biggest acts in music not named Taylor Swift. You’re both Scandinavians — Norsks here in a foreign land thrust into a lifestyle beyond imagination. It’d be natural for you two to… gravitate to each other. On top of both of your secondary presentations. It’d almost be expected. I’m not saying it’s right, but the world expects alphas to go with omegas and omegas to go with alphas. And when you’re together in the traditional relationship, romance and all of that, they see that it’s not only about sex with you.”

Why wasn’t this insane?

“Your busy schedules and the crossover between your management would explain why only now there’s been hint of it. Add in Loki fearing the stigma of having a secondary presentation and not wanting to feed into the stereotypes by being with a publically known alpha.”

“And last night was an organic moment resulting from the overwhelming emotions of the ceremony,” said Heimdall. “When the public hears this, they’ll feel instead that they’ve been granted the luxury of seeing two people who care deeply for each other show it.”

“When do we break up?” Loki asked. Good question.

“Five months,” said Sigyn. “When you go on tour, it’ll be a predictable opening for you two to end things. You’ve only been together since the EMAs back in November. For a relationship that young, tour would be a deal-breaker.”

“We go public and then what?” asked Thor.

“You have a plus one to events for the next five months,” said Erik.

“Paparazzi will get distant shots of the two of you leaving restaurants and public events,” said Heimdall. “Not much will change.”

This was for Mom and the music.

“Okay, we’ll do it.”

“I will too,” said Loki because he had to take offense to that.

“Yay, my two favorite musicians are dating,” said Darcy.

“Let me know when you have the press releases finished.” Thor didn’t need to stick around for that. “I’ll be down in the studio.”

He needed to shred.

**#**

“Mom, it’s complicated” was the bottom line without the carnage of Hollywood politics.

“Well, then, can you tell me if you’re happy?”

He had five new Grammys which in theory represented recognition for his hard work — again, debatable in these times — and he had superheroes behind him keeping his career on track, but he had this situation hanging over his head. It was about to be taken care of though, so he could get back to the important shit: the music.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m happy.”

That was all that mattered to Mom, him being happy and safe. She was too — thrilled really. Loki was so handsome and so talented and “charming.” “I’m so happy he’s an omega.” Thor didn’t have the heart to tell her this was all more or less an act. “When he comes here, you should come with him,” Mom said. “Introduce me.”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Who knows if we’ll be talking then.”

“Thor.” She would’ve slapped him in the arm if she’d been there. She would when he told her that their sham was done. “What you’re doing is very brave. Your father would be proud.”

Doubtful.

He’d been all about bending the press to his will to feed the zeitgeist around his films, but he kept his personal life personal. Thor was about to follow up the post of him pre-Grammys taken by Röskva with a typed-up message captioned with his so-called boyfriend’s handle. Dad would’ve spun it as a performance piece, taken the mistaken identity excuse farther, and gone, “Not all artists are ponces,” in the middle of an interview to shut down any naysayers.

“The only honesty you owe the world is your art,” he’d say, aiming his half-chewed cigar at Thor.

In a way, Thor was staying true to that.

_‘First, we’d like to thank the fans for their support as always._

_Yesterday, in a gross violation of our privacy, a moment between two (very) consenting adults who thought they were completely alone was stolen by someone on camera. The condemnation goes without saying, but we would like to turn this into an opportunity to willingly share with the world that neither of us is ashamed. You wrap fragile things in tissue paper and set them on high out-of-reach shelves to keep them from breaking. Sometimes, letting some sunlight in and getting some fresh air is worth the risk._

_-Loki & Thor’_

Darcy shut the comments off.

Loki’d been unseen when Thor’d resurfaced but Erik playing messenger pointed to him being in the house. The place’s acoustics tamped down on sound pollution from high-traffic areas, a major selling point for Thor for him to get away from the party to go chop up on a guitar without an audience. Thor nearly missed the piano notes sprinkling out of his Magic Room.

The offerings of a pianist in Hell’s top cabaret. Loki knew how to become the character. A decade of acting, it had to be like breathing to him.

The Wayfarers shined their lifeless glossy black on the gray lid of the Grand.

Familiar notes stepped in carefully but ramped up in tempo till he had “The Man” in piano instrumental.

“I guess that now I can convince you to give me that public performance license to cover this,” said Loki. “I thought Prince had been difficult, but he eventually gave it to me. You? I never even get a reply.”

“I don’t want someone to destroy my song.”

The light coming in off the sand gave Loki’s eyes warmth. It was all he had. His smile could’ve fucking killed. “The lies we tell ourselves to preserve our egos.” He stopped. “I’m going onto _Triple-J_ in three weeks. I want to cover it on ‘Like a Version.’”

“That’s nice.”

“What? You don’t think it’ll be romantic?” He swept himself up off the bench, hair spreading its black wings to soar. It’d been silk in Thor’s fingers. He was a bird of prey. Lull you into a false sense of comfort, chub you up, and the next day you were calling him your boyfriend. “‘Lor’ or ‘Thorki.’ I like Thorki. It flows better. It’s got a poke to it.”

“How about ‘Loki’ and ‘Thor.’ There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You can’t be a legitimate celebrity couple and not have a portmanteau. Brangelina, Bennifer. It’s a token of public approval.”

“And Erik says I’m cynical.”

“Who do you think he bases that on?” Loki would go blank, but there’d be an expression there, one Thor’d tag sooner or later. “If you’re your usual messy self, I’ll get to spin this into a _Lemonade._ ” The Beyoncé album where she exposed Jay Z for being fucking stupid. Thor’d provided guitar for a track on that. They’d gotten a few awards for it. “I’ve been looking for a change in image, and the label feels that I need to humanize myself. Nothing more human than dealing with the fallout of a shitty partner.” Against the piano, Loki’s first finger lifted then the second as the first went down, the third as the second, then the fourth. “It’d be ironic that I’d be forever associated with you no matter what you said. Nightmarish.”

“You’d like that.”

“I wouldn’t not like it. Being untalented and all.”

“You’re really taking that to heart.” Hey, if Paul hadn’t hugged him and said he was going places after hearing the rip of Thor’s debut, Thor would’ve felt some kind of way too. “You’re the best of all the garbage that’s come out of the machine lately. You can be proud of that.”

Now that he thought of it, Thor might’ve had the memory of Loki on him. That called for a shower. Loki’d fucked off when Thialfi knocked into the bedroom to notify him what the chef had put together for dinner. “What do you think?” Thor asked him, and when Thialfi was pausing to think through what he thought Thor wanted to hear — people always paused when they did — Thor said, “No. Really.”

“I think… it’s good that it was him that you ended up in this with. He’s very strategic.”

“Cunning, self-interested.” Thor thanked him with a squeeze and shake on the shoulder. To think Loki was even skinnier than him, the walking sword.

Thialfi was on the same page as Erik and Heimdall, Darcy too. If Thor’d been caught in that “California Girls” woman or some boy bander, he’d have been screwed. No amount of Heimdall’s tourniquets would’ve stopped the bleed of Thor’s career while they ran their mouths all over Hollywood and Twitter and whatever the hell about their “spicy hook-up” with him.

What a damned situation where Loki was the lesser evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's "California *Gurls*", Thor


	3. "Be Straightforward"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, yeah, all the chapter titles are Loki and Thor song titles. I'm a bit of a... maniac for putting together story background, so yes, there are full discographies and yeah, it's something.

Loki could hardly console himself over this not being the incensed, torches-and-pitchforks-at-Loki’s-doorstep reaction. The texts from pseudo-acquaintances trying to pat him on the shoulder, expressing his “bravery” — did they miss the part that a voyeur exposed him? Oh, of course, they wouldn’t hear that from the trending tags and secondhand stories from their team — and from industry contacts unearthed a deeply visceral full-body gag reflex. “Be who you are man,” Drake texted him before proceeding to post a picture of him in front of their platinum plaque for “Limbs” captioned “OVO AO” in case any of his fans missed the news. Loki needed more people spilling into the comments of his last post-pre-The Revelation to ply him with prayer and hug emojis and “we still love you”s and dissertations about how he’d helped them accept themselves and now they’d accept him (and Thor but to hell with him.)

Sigyn, predictably, said that it was “beautiful.” “They support you.”

“They support me having a vagina. I’m not a porn star. Contrary to some conservative outlets and protests in small American towns. My genitals shouldn’t be in the equation.”

If only the asswipes with their scissoring memes and “damn bro sings low as hell for a eunuch tbh” tweets would’ve gotten that memo. Fine, some of them, most of them, the “lol no balls” brigade, had not been fans of Loki before, Clint, that creature that was sometimes helpful, pointed out, but Loki, the person, assumed beta, had given them enough ammo exclusive of his presentation that this should’ve been a non-factor. Why did it fucking matter that Loki didn’t have external testicles or that he had a uterus? That his vagina had hosted Thor, who happened to be alpha, yes, his cock? How did that reflect or affect him singing and dancing his ass off?

“It doesn’t,” Heimdall said, too reasonable that Loki waited for him to finish. “Which is why you should’ve disclosed your presentation from the beginning as I told you. We knew this hinged on perfectly playing a role. I could tell this was a matter of time.”

“You’re blaming me for not relying on the gimmick of my genitals. Typical.”

“I’m blaming you for keeping it a secret which is what gave it the value it has in the first place. In the beginning, yes, it would’ve come up once or twice in interviews, but look at Elton John. No one — and I mean no one because the people who care might as well be no one — gives a damned about what he likes anymore. You could be at that phase, but you made your decision and here we are. Hm,” he said as his phone buzzed. “Elton and David send their best, and Elton says to call him whenever.”

“Kiss my ass.”

Loki was all too tempted to relay that on all his social media as Heimdall knew, having not only changed Loki’s passwords but the recovery emails, so Loki was left seething at midnight after having read another pity-pat disguised under the headline “Your Fave is An Omega” (not to mention the “Thor and Loki: A Primer” one above that) without recourse for his righteous anger. Loki did not want to be the leader of a social movement. He attended his annual GSM benefits, took to the streets in his rainbow for the parades, volunteered his voice at the charity concerts. He had no obligation to shoulder the expectations and issues of millions of people as the face of omegas and secondary presenters everywhere. He was the face of Loki, Loki, the god of pop.

Not “Loki, omega daddy” as written on a poster some fan held up in the audience of a club — Paris, intimate, as Loki’d always liked, particularly now — with ignorant enthusiasm. They were neck-in-neck with the “Loki + Thor” in the green glitter heart swaying at the back.

As opposed to being called “breeder” in thick Parisian accents by the super-fans that’d camped at the back entrance. Loki’s French didn’t cover the signs they had, but the message of “what about society? What about our kids? What about their (non-presenting) kids?” transcended language.

_“Thor Teases Love Song about Loki at Radio Interview_ ,” started off his Google Alert for Thor which was necessary now that the news of his dick being discovered in someone not-Loki would be found there. _“Thor’s First Public Appearance Since Grammy’s (Watch).”_

“Did you see this?” he asked Clint, showing him the un-played video on his phone, and he gave Loki a second of his attention to shrug. He’d always had a soft spot for Thor.

“Didn’t mention you by name once, barely made any direct reference to you. Not that they didn’t try,” he said. “He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But everyone’s assuming it’s just him being protective.”

“When it’s him being a terrible actor.”

It’d started to rain. He might’ve had Barton take a photo of him with the exposure negligible with the streetlights projecting raindrops on his face, but that was when he had mystique. He’d left all his mystique in that alleyway.

This had better get him a lifetime achievement award in his late 50s from the Grammy’s at minimum.

**T**

“Thor—“

“Are you and Loki planning on tying the knot?”

“What do you think about TMZ’s retraction?”

“Are there any kids in Thorki’s future?”

Aviators looked fucking good on him, yes, but they also had this little-known power of throwing back the flashes into the vultures’ lenses so the usable parts of their roll were Thor from three-quarters and behind. If they were here trying and failing to get frontpage material to peddle to tabloids, they weren’t out harassing others. Thor didn’t mind coming through the front entrance if he got to play Robin Hood.

Handshakes with 96.2 FM’s staff, faces from the last time and new ones, friendly in the way someone was when they’d seen your shoulders go stiff when you shot off. They’d seen him with the coke powder guarding his nostrils while he stumbled out behind Casablancas and Turner back in the hardcore days. That had to be considered an improvement.

Heimdall promised career Siberia for asking off the off-limits topic list to the hosts before they got into their positions in the recording booth to welcome the slaves to Los Angeles traffic to today’s mid-day entertainment. The 405 was the reason LA was the last real radio market. Thor’d get in a masochistic mood and switch the radio on sometimes to refresh how bad it’d all gotten.

He mourned for them, the listeners and himself, when the headphones he slipped on drooled out some Starbucks “rock” in name only. Here was Thor to give them a break. “It’s always a pleasure to be here.”

The female host couldn’t resist telling him it was always a pleasure to have him.

“Watch out. This is a taken man here.”

“I know. I know.” She said, “Listen, Loki, I don’t want any smoke. We’ve met, and you know I’m a fan and wouldn’t even try. He made ‘Zodiac.’ How can I compete?”

Thor pulled a face that the internet would interpret as agreement like expected. He pressed down his rejoice over them finding the original reason he was here and that was to discuss his music. Dad blamed the influx of low-quality entertainment for people looking for it everywhere, in their musicians who they should’ve only wanted music out of, and Thor was realizing more and more than he was right. Thor answered their questions about how he came up with the album title (“It’s a quote from writing about ‘Rocket 88,’ one of the first rock songs.”) and what’d been the major influences that went into it and where could they look for them (“Sex, drugs, Rock and Roll, what else?” he said like he always did) so they knew they could get interesting information out of him. It was only natural they’d try their luck for more.

“Let’s take a break with ‘Eleven’ by the one and only Loki.”

Thor would’ve cracked open _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_ if he craved pillow-talk from someone he’d paid to play and thrown on Beatport’s Top 100 for tried and true synth presets they layered on eighties syncopation for some “ground-breaking” and “daring” — they loved that word “daring” when talking about him, “daring”— flare to the uneducated ear. Listening to Loki try to replicate the tone when his cock was being touched was laughable. He sounded nothing like it. He was as convincing as a porn star.

“You’re not a love song kind of guy, are you?” asked the female host. “I was thinking during the break, going back through your album in my head, and I don’t know if you saw me over here looking”—she had the jewel case of it in her hand. Thor’d noticed—“but I realized there’s not a song on here that’s about love.”

“Can anyone conscionably write a love song when ‘Something’ exists?” Thor asked. That’d gone over their heads. “I don’t know. I’ve never had the urge. Maybe that’ll change. I can’t say I’ll never write one because unfortunately, I can’t see the future — fortunately, it’d ruin some surprises. Life’s nothing without some surprises. But I wouldn’t call myself an ‘anything song’ kind of guy. I prefer not to box myself in.”

“Mm. I could’ve sworn Loki said something like that when he was here a few months back.” Thor liked the male host. He liked him, so he was going to overlook all of this. The man was doing a job. This is what the people wanted. The people could be stupid. “I’m sure the internet will take care of finding that out for me. Y’all hear that? Probably already up on Twitter.”

Thor hadn’t waded into the clusterfuck of social media since this past Sunday — Sunday evening before the award show. He was going to give it another two, three days, for a total of a week, before he had a glance and risked starting a fight with some keyboard warrior that’d forgotten about his glory years of tangoing with never playing guitar again over a breaking his hand on twats’ faces.

His fans, who were no doubt putting in shifts out there on their phones and laptops, maybe even in person, deserved some thanks. Thor made way for, by popular request, “Frozen Ground,” the album’s second single.

They were grateful for him stopping in, and he was welcome to come back anytime.

Heimdall couldn’t be anything but pleased. “You managed that well, all things considered.”

“You should have more faith. When have I ever disappointed you?” Thor slid his sunglasses back on. “How about I go have a drink at some ‘hot spot’ and have those assholes camping outside all night?”

**#**

“Oh — right — you have breakfast with Loki today,” Erik slipped in, and he had to “go,” so there Thor was under the one Erik’d gotten over him, decaffeinated and dead from his workout. Well-played, Erik.

Loki had a suite at the Ritz which Thor knew about because Röskva knew about it. Röskva knew about it from Erik, sure, but from the fan-page she’d followed maybe recently for assistant purposes, maybe not (Thor didn’t ask her because he didn’t want to know. What she liked was her business. It hadn’t been on his mind before this. No need for the change.) Röskva’s fellow followers of the fan-page stood guard out front with posters and Loki gear. And that was his, Thor’s, logo and person on some sweatshirts and tees.

They’d hedged their bets well.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re actually here!”

Thor signed some posters and shirts, for the crying girl, took her phone, and Thor was fair, so he directed everyone to cram in close to get into the picture. “I’d give you all one,” he explained, “but I’ve got a date.”

They forgave him right then and there.

Loki’s own personal Jason Bourne answered the door and held out a hand for Thor to shake and formally introduced himself (because it was hard to do that when he was talking Loki down like Thor’d passed him doing not at just the Grammys.) “Clint Barton.” Loki’s Röskva. “Just you?” Thor asked. “Seems like a three-person job.”

Pretending Thor wasn’t right wasn’t covered in the job description because Clint told Thor, “And that’s why I’m getting paid like it.”

He struck Thor as one of the few people that hadn’t bought into the Hollywood Hype but kept their heads down and noses clean from the bullshit. Loki, actor he was, he’d keep someone like that around him, his ear to the street.

“If you stay about two feet away from the railing, no one, say, on one of the surrounding rooftops can get you on camera.” The cheeky fuck grinned at Thor. “Loki’s already out there on the terrace.”

Thor thanked him for the warning. From inside, it looked empty. Thor’s heart yanked back against his spine when Loki showed up at the table.

“Our fans have formed an alliance,” said Thor as he took the seat exactly across Loki where anyone not out here would’ve definitely seen him.

A V of skin dipped down into the unbuttoned part of Loki’s forest green shirt.

“All along the solution to the hatred between poptimists and rockists was their leaders boinking. Predictable.” Loki’s mouth focused in on the fork, sealed it and the crepe that’d been on it inside. They tried as they might to hold on, but he was pulling it out. The softer inner skin skidding over his cock. “With the word filter on for ‘faggot’ and ‘breeder’ in 20 different languages, your fans have been very welcoming in my comments.”

“I don’t claim those people as fans. They like the music, but they’re not fans.”

“King_Thor_67 who thinks I’m Satan, isn’t a fan? I think he’d disagree.”

“Who gives a fuck what he thinks?”

Loki’s drink left shine on his lips. Thor bet they looked like that down below.

“Why don’t you have a place out here?”

“I hate Los Angeles. It’s hot and sunny.”

“Those sound like reasons to love it.”

“There’s a betting pool at the label that I’ll develop skin cancer, and they’ll get to wheel me around as some heroic survivor story. That is if I don’t die. Those post-death sales bumps are appealing. I embrace my Norse blood like the ancestors did which is why they explored and saw the shit weather everywhere else and realized that no, they were better off in Scandinavia.”

“So, where do you live mostly then?”

“New York.”

When Thor showed how ridiculous that was, the corners of Loki’s eyes pinched in a smile. Sincere. He spoke to Loki about his stints in New York. Back during the Warrior days, they’d all shared a loft to ferry back and forth from the studio to. Toward the end of sessions, the clubs and bars had seen more of Thor than the loft or his bandmates, which was a whole other story unto itself that he was sure Loki’d read about as it was happening in magazines like Thor’s parents had loudly and angrily been. “You could say — don’t know if you heard of the song; it’s by Gil Scott Heron but —“

“New York was killing you?”

“Yeah. Alternatively, no. Blaming New York absolves me of a lot of blame, rightfully, I should get. When you’re 19 hailed the next Mick Jagger, there’s no such thing as ‘too much.’”

“I always felt that was premature.” That wasn’t meant as an insult surprisingly. “The world was aching for another Mick in the age of these great-grandchildren of rock. Warrior came along with rock that people had been looking for, and people got carried away.”

“Did you?”

Loki’s eyelids swept his lashes down over his eyes. They lifted and brought with them his pupils aiming at Thor in exasperation. “If you’re asking if I had a Warrior poster on the wall of my dorm at art school in Oslo, no comment. Besides that I was 18 and 18-year-olds are dumb.”

“You went to art school. That explains everything.”

“I was personally and somewhat aggressively recruited because they knew that I’d become a master pianist. As you’ll pretend to not know, my mother’s Norwegian, so they’d have claim to me if I did. I did, but the other things I became are more impressive to put in the tourism brochures.”

“That’s even worse. You’re a master pianist cranking out club music. Imagine if Picasso had stuck to traditional paintings because that made him easy money.”

“I wouldn’t begrudge him. Not all of us come with a safe place to land in the form of artistic royalty for parents.”

“I don’t get what that has to do with anything.”

“Music wasn’t a risk for you. If you failed, worst case scenario was ending up as airtime filler on a classic rock station.” Did that sound like anything less than hell to him? “Your father directed most of the movies people would list off as their favorites. That includes record label executives and audio engineers, studio owners, I could list everyone involved in the music-making process.”

“I’ve heard this bullshit almost as many times as records I’ve sold, and I’ve sold fucking continents of records. Not because of my father or my mother or some A&R rep liking _E.T._ but me. Me, Loki. I know it’s hard to grasp people getting ahead by genuine talent because of your fucking gimmicks and your selling out, but that’s what happened to me.”

“No, David, don’t wear that eye-shadow. No, Madonna, don’t wear that bra. That’s a fucking gimmick.” Psycho smile for a psycho. That was what he was, comparing himself to them. “Did you know that Paul McCartney is meeting with me next week to work on music? You respect him right? Or is that only when he agrees with you? That’s rhetorical. We both know the answer.”

Loki cornering himself had been a bad — no, good choice. He had nowhere to go but where Thor wanted him to and that happened to be the table. It took the wind out of him in a sound that Thor ate right up. Sugar and cream and Loki biting his tongue in half and soothing it over with his sweet spit, telling him, “You better fuck me hard.” Loki’s pants were spun from luxury tissue paper and he did do underwear, and Thor’s cock was so hard it melted through his jeans. Clothes didn’t have to be off for Thor to gift his cock with the electric drag of Loki’s — everything about him. His cock, his thighs, the fingers that kept Thor’s shoulders stinging because Loki’d gone up the back of his shirt, smaller than Thor’s, but fuck if Loki acted like it.

“Why can’t I smell you?”

“A Propantheline implant. I don’t produce musk.”

His cock was sandpapered and he was going to scream if Loki (because he’d started this. He was going to finish it too) didn’t get him off. “That’s sad.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hiding yourself for these people…”

Loki stayed down with a hand to the chest while Thor got his pants down.

Pink eye down there between his perfect ass cheeks winking.

“What else would you call that?” Thor’s mouth asked.

Loki’s lips pouted, flushed the same pink of the ones up top, and Thor was never one to deny himself. He traced the line down his cock, sucked on the spot where cock and cunt were one too, and threw Loki’s head back in the window between his thighs, and over his taint and down to the Promised Land. What chocolate and vodka aspired to. His tongue convinced Loki’s hole to open up. He followed through with his fingers when he calmed himself down with the safer taste of the core of his thigh. Would’ve been too much with the gentle heat of Loki sucking at his fingers.

“The cherries,” Loki was saying.

“What?”

“There are condoms at the bottom of the cherries. Down by you.”

The cherries, there next to Thor at the edge of the table. They fucked off.

“You planned this.” His teeth were as careful as they could’ve been opening the foil.

“Better to be… over-prepared than… under.”

This was having his Hendrix cherry popped, those first chords of “Hey Joe.” They said the guitar had been invented for Thor to play it. Loki’d been born for Thor to have someone to take his cock. Put that on an album cover, Loki’s puffy cunt around Thor’s big, needy cock.

Loki’s knees tucked up under his chin couldn’t keep his mouth closed. The kick of Thor’s balls slapping his ass and him telling Thor how to fuck him like he wasn’t smearing his cream all over Thor’s cock so much he matted Thor’s cock-hair with it, Thor responding when the nonverbal sounds weren’t cutting it when he could.

His breath got taken away.

The moment so short they hadn’t put a word to it after his name was called for an award, all hundred plus of them, with the side of a bump of coke. It’d been so fucking good Thor couldn’t be ungrateful enough to miss it when it ebbed. It’d’ve been mind breaking.

Loki’s skin had the chill Thor’s hand needed.

Thor thought he’d gotten good at pulling out past his knot when it hit. He’d get it. Eventually. Would it be with Loki? He doubted it. Just looking at him, self-satisfied, a path of cum walking up to the heaving golden delicious in his neck, bottom lip gone under his top one, eyes a breath of air you could only get fresh back in Norway — long-story-short, could you blame Thor? Loki was very… knot-able to put it.

“I think you suggested these plans with Erik, so you could get dick,” said Thor.

Loki and that smirk. “I’m a man of convenience.”

Thor had the heebie-jeebies pulling out. Getting the condom off nearly killed him. It was just too much. He’d never be that relieved to get his dick in his pants again.

Loki’s pants were down still to show off the fingertip Thor could’ve stuck into his hole, dripping cream that Thor could’ve almost pictured as his cum, if he reached between his cock-eyed feet. Sadly for him Thor’s cock wasn’t up to it.

Neither was Thor quite frankly.

He told him — and Loki looked up from under his stupid lashes, knew full well what it could’ve done to Thor if it’d been earlier and Thor’s balls weren’t empty, “Tell Paul I said hi.”


	4. "Upperhand"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from a Thor song title from his third aptly titled album "You're Welcome."
> 
> With a special guest appearance by Paul McCartney.

“You and Thor, huh?” asked Paul with the most paternal of expressions, guitar leaned on his chest as he leaned from between Loki and Paul’s laptop. He had enough experience with Loki to expect the non-response he received.

The less Loki talked or thought about or acknowledged the existence of Thor, the better. After two of their last three encounters, his brain had understandably associated all things Thor with all things hard and wet, and Loki had purchased and furnished the loft he came home to on songs about all things hard and wet. He’d been presumed beta then. He could get away with that without it being blamed on his biology or with the conclusion being drawn that it was autobiographical. Loki longed to live on a cock and bred like a bunny. Thor — the artist that had the honor of occupying space among the vinyls beside his record player, not the person — had embraced that assumption and renovated it into the devil-may-care fuck songs that were too good for the “anti-breeders” to dismiss as the hypersexual deviance expected of second presenters.

Thor’d said it was sad. Considering him in that context sure neutralized Loki’s libido. Masochism, contrary to popular assumption, was not a kink of his. Thor thought it was, judging Loki for allowing his art to stand on its own, not weighed down by society’s prejudices. Like the betas didn’t grant him leeway because he embodied a lot of their own ideals of masculinity — but at a safe distance.

“Shit’s weird. I don’t try to understand it. Just here for the music, lol” from “onelastlight05” on /r/Thor summed up Thor’s fan-base. Loki’s fan-base liked him at the cusp of relatability. 90% of the world couldn’t relate to having a second presentation. They didn’t want to hear the hypersexual musings of a breeder outside of morbid curiosity. Contrary to what Heimdall or Thor thought, Loki wouldn’t have sold over 50 million albums if “Crazy for It” had been tinted by his omega-hood. Flat out.

“And that’s fucked,” said Barton, not leaning on his arm like he did when pretending to listen but on his forearms likely due to the clear possibility Loki might’ve poured or thrown something at him from his lunch if he wasn’t. He needed to. It was his job. “Music is music. Separate the art from the artists. We wouldn’t have any music to listen to if we judged everyone’s personal lives. Did you know Elvis started dating Priscilla when she was 14? And they were both, you know, regular.” Leave it to a beta to not call themselves one. “Even in a positive way. I don’t care that Bono donates money. Music still sucks.”

“But even you agreed. My private life should be that, private. What does me liking men and women or having a second hole have to do with anything?”

“Doesn’t. But people seem to eat the shit up. They want relatable. Look. You see it for yourself. Check your Instagram comments. They’ve never had as many posters. And yeah, it’s not all congratulations, but you like controversy. You’re divisive, but I’d say it’s not an even split. You’ve got even more people loving you but you do have a bit more people hating you too. But the numbers, man. This took you from here.” Clint held up a hand to his eyes. “To here.”

And up it went as he stood from the stool and held it above his head.

“Bet Selvig would’ve hooked you guys up before the album dropped if he could.” He could’ve tried to not be so delighted by all of this. It wouldn’t hurt to pretend to not relish in Loki’s discomfort. “Tickets were already sold out but wouldn’t be surprised if this generates some buzz for a few extra dates. People are gonna wanna see what all the fuss is about.”

Crowds of non-believers were a favorite challenge of his he rarely had the fortune of, but the Dad Rockers and Johnny and Jane Everymen that’d fill up the arenas for a sniff of the novelty would’ve been one. If the people wanted more of him, he’d have to consider.

The mystique might’ve been gone but the demand wasn’t.

“Has Natasha come back from Moscow yet?” Loki casually asked, uncapping his water.

“Nope,” said Clint. He ruffled some of the disappointment into his hair in the cover of Loki’s water. “I mean, I haven’t heard anything.”

Because Natasha was absolutely not his girlfriend despite the thousand-fuck stare they shared when they thought no one was looking.

“I’ll bet she finds the new branding of me as some omega activist funny.”

“Oh, I guarantee she does.”

**T**

Thor gave the ok to the public performance license. With a simple stipulation.

“You don’t trust my guitarist?” asked Loki.

The mirror light threw a bullshit shadow under Loki’s cheekbone because no fucking way it wasn’t that smooth curve it’d been if Thor ran a finger over it. Which he didn’t. The cheekbone wouldn’t cut him, but Loki’s teeth might’ve.

“No one can play guitar like I can on the song. I did write it.”

The woman that’d been primping Loki (there’d been a lot of spraying and her running his hands through his hair but he looked no different than the usual) finished. This freed Loki to get up like he’d been plotting the second Thor’d walked in like he wasn’t still at a height disadvantage. From afar, Thor could’ve been fooled it’d be the other way around with how long the black on black on black, “Parisian boy smoking a cigarette looking for someone to call Daddy for the night” thing stretched him. His legs. Fuck.

“Are you listening?”

Thor looked up with his talk show smile. “Yeah. Yes. Of course, I am.”

“Well,” said Loki, “I was saying that it’d be funny if you just appear without any introduction. It’d be a total subversion of expectations. Sort of like my gimmicks which you know I love.”

“Don’t care as long as I’m playing. And if you want to play the song then I am.”

Loki’s cologne would’ve gotten some calculating serial killer in a neo-noir movie caught. He used a handful of Thor’s shirt to support his endeavor to get eye to eye with him. “Couldn’t stay away long, could you?”

Thor had an underrated poker face. “No matter how good your pussy is my song’s not getting destroyed for it.”

Loki soured right up. You never would’ve guessed he’d been anything but elated backstage when he went out into the recording studio. Up on the monitor — in a fucking keytar — Loki was checking all the boxes of the music-stricken Lothario they all wanted like a bonus. Thor liked Jack Sparrow. He wouldn’t have liked him if he was whipping out his prick to help piss all over music’s legacy though. Most people didn’t give a shit about music’s legacy.

Here was Thor’s big grievance with the Lokis, the Ed Sheerans, the Max Martins of music. There were few of them, but they were there. Exhibit fucking A: Loki had a voice that should’ve been in the Louvre. Thor could admit that to himself. That voice should’ve been on Broadway winning Tonys, performing in Italian opera-houses for fossils and dukes. It was a fucking insult that it endorsed this watered-down-for-quick-consumption ass lyricism. There was nothing noble about running slower to stick with your slow mates. Loki knew that. He wouldn’t have had to get so lost in the singing to mine for inspiration for the passion-adjacent faces he made if he didn’t.

After the song came to a close, Loki chitchatted about someone’s cover of his song the hosts were swooned about. It wasn’t that good, and Thor hadn’t even seen it.

Loki tapped his usual guitarist on the shoulder and murmured him the bittersweet news.

“So, what’ll it be next?”

As Loki filled them in, Thor made his way to the studio entrance to take the guitar over his neck and monitor in his ear. “You were good out there,” he told the guy, and that smoothed things over.

There was some adjustment happening that Thor used as camo. He couldn’t go to where the guitarist stood without getting some notice, so the hosts were pointing through the glass at him.

Thor did what he was planning to, a quick tune of the guitar.

Loki was looking around out the top of his eye, but he didn’t linger on Thor. He did a four count.

The opening riff hit the ground running.

The bassline’s in synth nipped at the bassist’s heels as Loki plodded them out, and the drummer, they were doing a fairly decent job driving the tempo away from the inferno.

Loki’s mouth opened, and this was what the person who’d commissioned that portrait of their wife that became the Mona Lisa must’ve felt. An opera singer could’ve learned the Italian phonetically and read the annotations, but they’d never feel the song like an Italian speaker could. Loki, he knew Thor’s language.

Fuck yes.

Loki was living “The Man.” Thrusting his tight little hips behind his keytar, a fucking Peacock strutting around with the mic. His eyes got caught on Thor’s and was reeled in to serenade Thor in all the molten black chocolate of his voice coating Thor’s lyrics. Nourish the fucking spirit. That was what music was about, not the glitter or the Grammys but this, the smile that couldn’t get off of Loki’s mouth, either of theirs, because it was what “The Man” called for, and they both knew it.

Loki carried some synth into the guitar solo at the end, and it fucking shouldn’t have, but it worked. It really fucking worked.

Loki licked his smile away and took a step back to do his stage bow to the uproarious applause they could only see.

Thor’s job was done.

“Nice,” said Clint. “One of my favorite songs, and I think you’ve got the album version beat.”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” Thor replied.

Loki Beatles boots crossed the threshold. That might’ve been a trick of the light, but Thor could’ve sworn he had a flush. He stopped at Thor, and his touch on Thor’s arm was weightless but Thor took instruction from it to stay right where he was. He told Clint to give them a second.

“Just a second?”

Loki wasn’t thinking with his dick, not yet, and had a barely there tilt to his head. “It has your seal of approval then I assume?”

“I was involved. Of course it does.” He gave in. The swipe the back of his knuckle down Loki’s cheekbone confirmed: no sharp angle. Just the curve Thor remembered. “You should try out real music more.”

Loki’s squint said that wasn’t what Loki’d wanted to hear. Too bad. “You should get out of here. I have to go to an interview in an hour.”

Thor could take a hint. Playtime was over. “See you at the fundraiser. I’m wearing black, so you probably shouldn’t. For once.”

Mom loved their “Like a Version.”

So did everybody else.

**L**

Heimdall’d passed his number on to Thor because a text from Thor — “ _This is Thor”_ — welcomed him out of his shower.

_“Did you see the official post?”_

He replied, _“Firstly, I’d hope so or I have to get my number changed_ ,” darling, so darling that Thor replied with none other than a self-shot — because selfies will never be a word in Loki’s vocabulary — of himself with the feared too-taut, Dad smile at the console of presumably his personal studio. _“I’m still soaking wet from my shower, so no, to answer your question, I haven’t.”_

Thor helpfully and not at all insistently sent him the link that the email from Triple-J likely contained. No surprise, they were a real Jagger-Richards if Jagger and Richards had had even greater amounts of sexual tension and were attractive. This was not Thor’s focus of course. Thor’d infamously walked out on an interview at _Vanity Fair_ after two questions related to him being, as anyone with eyes knew, sexy in a row. He eagerly embraced being oblivious to the role said sexiness happily played in his rockstardom. Besides the Loki factor, this arrangement of theirs rankled Thor because it implied his sexuality was a component of his career, and you know, that was pedestrian behavior that only Loki and his pop-star ilk engaged in.

Loki not replying because he was getting dry and dressed gave Thor permission to resume his poking of the bear. _“We could do this again._

_“At another award show?_

_“Don’t know what the next one is_

_“Don’t keep track of that shit_

_“It’d be a pleasure_

_“Giving you the opportunity to play good music.”_

Ah, go fuck yourself, Thor.

His favorite child had kept her seat free for Loki to prop his phone up on the piano lid at an angle that would not unflatter him and crack his knuckles while throwing in the notes through his internal transcriber, keeping it in its original key for a good zing.

“Upperhand” was an insufferably self-congratulatory swing for the lads at the pubs to scream at the tops of their lungs over their nth pints while clapping the rhythm, but Loki calmed it down and refined it for Carnegie Hall. He sucked the color from the video then posted it to his repossessed Instagram, captioning it: “Throwback Thursday.”

 _“really?”_ asked Thor a handful of minutes later.

_“What? I don’t need a performance license for Instagram._

_“And you said you wanted me to play good music more often._

_“Why stop there?_

_“Refurbish good music.”_

_“It doesn’t need changing_

_“Your version isn’t shit though.”_

_“Hmmm_

_Show me your cock.”_

_“Was this just a ploy to get me in the mood”_

“ _That’s a trick question since you’re always in the mood.”_

_“Not wrong.”_

There it plopped out onto Loki’s screen: Thor’s dildo-perfect penis nestled in the heart boxers he’d absolutely be wearing around the house. Him calling ruined Loki’s view.

“Fuck you for hating LA.” Thor could’ve spoken a bass-line aloud with how deep his voice had descended. “Do you know how long it’s been since I last had phone sex? I think the phone had a cord that’s how long ago it was.”

“This was a better choice than FaceTime. I agree. The eroticism of a voice is underrated.”

“You could keep talking like that, and it’d be enough.”

Loki lied back on the bench. The sheer hardness of it was in essence like Thor. Forget the guitar-playing. The ability to command a lake into Loki’s cunt was truly noteworthy. “Tell me what you’d do to me if I did live in LA.”

That phone sex was better than a lot of the real sex Loki’d had.


	5. "Going Green"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IRL, The Sugarland Express is a Spielberg movie from the 70s I wanna say. It's got Goldie Hawn in it. But Odin is approximately Spielberg, ergo - yeah.
> 
> Chapter title is taken from a Loki song from his third and latest album, the RIAA 3x platinum and Grammy award-winning "XI".
> 
> Guest star of this chapter: Disney CEO and heir Tony Stark!
> 
> Chapter playlist of pop goodness in honor of the title: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5JU9Ch71d52t5JPLTmhl1E?si=vKv499QURsShEKZOXeSEuQ

Thor watched the official publication of Loki’s “Like a Version” and YouTube jumped the gun.

(The top comment caught the corner of Thor’s eye: “Id be gay for Thor and id be gay for Loki so kudos.” He was surveying the damage in the recommended section.)

Up next: “Loki – Elixir.” Didn’t want to fucking watch that? How about “Loki – Zodiac.” Next MoMA exhibit snapshotted in the thumbnail was “Loki – Permafrost,” and YouTube didn’t do half-measures, so there was a version of that at KCRW. Couldn’t go without the gimmicks so it looked like he had a green Pope headdress on in that one. What if Thor didn’t want to sit through a trailer for some fetish porn shot by some kid who’d declared himself the second coming of Dali with his dick in his hand and wanted music? Fucking asking for a lot there evidently.

Fuck it. Thor was feeling masochistic. “Kneel” it was. Thor’d done a Neo to Loki’s output after “Crazy for It” was rain-soaked softcore porn set to Honk Kong nightclub synths. When the heavy metal warehouse door swung open, there it was, proof Thor’d made the right decision: Loki in an honest to god neon green raincoat. Bring in the fake deep lyrics and toss it in some reverb and analogue synth tuned to _Dawn of the Dead_ playing at complex rhythms but stopping short of them because god forbid, they challenged the listener’s ear. Loki was god, and these random extras dropped to their knees during his tour of the city standing in for New York. Fucking deep.

Thor had to restrain himself from opening up a note to write a master thesis about how “daring” Loki retreading old themes but spit-shining and chroming it over was. Either cut the visuals or mute the music. They couldn’t be enjoyed together without the shortcomings of both exposing each other. Loki made music for guys and girls that hadn’t eaten a full meal in two weeks and fucked for coke to miserably stomp down fashion runways to. Thor’d said it before, and he’d say it again.

There was potential. There was fucking potential, and of course there was. Loki was a master pianist. What separated a master pianist from a human player piano was knowing what made music tic. Now that Thor had paid attention, listened past the glitter and glamor, it was fucking obvious. Thor could’ve cried. It was a tragedy — the statements that’d begin with promise and go some predictable place. And it was on purpose. That was the worst part. Where was the self-respect?

Loki could’ve been butt-ass naked singing “1999” (the best pop song ever written, no contest) 2.0, and he would’ve had more self-respect than him body-rolling on top of a pile of bodies painted black in “Moondark.”

Hey, it accomplished what it set out for — had Thor’s heart in his cock, not that it hadn’t been since Loki’d switched his little ass in that fucking raincoat. Loki and New York. Thor would’ve paid him a visit to see what else that mouth could do. Loki’d made some promises during their phone call. Thor had a pretty good foundation to lean back and picture it, grabbing his cock through his sweats for some relief. Loki would’ve been winning if Thor pulled himself off. Thor wasn’t going to cosign the bullshit with a load.

If someone else got it out of him, that was another story.

He shot a text to Röskva to get him some entertainment. It was overdue. He’d never promised them his cock faking being in the relationship too. Heimdall’d made it his mission to forward the biggest headlines involving the two of them, Thor and Loki, but Thor swiped or if he was in the mood, skimmed. He swiped.

He was about to end his journey down the rabbit hole, but there it was up next: “Loki – All is Gold (Piano Version at VEVO.)” There was poison green stage lighting around Loki, but Loki had nothing on his head besides his hair. Why not?

Loki leaned over the piano like he had Thor’s downstairs as the last of some applause cut off. In pure silence, his fingers, unseen but Thor could see them, as long and thin and white as the keys, caressed out these gut-punching chords. They had you primed for the end-of-the-bar-with-a-half-finished-glass-of-Jack Loki’s voice poured all over the moments that Thor’d been looking for in all the other songs Loki liked to stop short of. But not here. In the radio-castrated version, they wouldn’t be there. Thor knew that much. But Loki went all the fucking way, and it was beautiful.

“Um, Thor?”

Röskva, she had impeccable timing. “You—“

“You’re good with technology.” He handed her his laptop. “I want that song. Spotify probably won’t have it. I don’t care. Get it on my phone.”

“I wasn’t sure what you wanted,” she said. “Your text.”

Thialfi was waiting for the word to go out on the hunt.

“Oh. Don’t worry about that. I’m going to be down in the studio. Röskva, the song.”

Thor had some contemplating on guitar to do.

**#**

“Don’t tell me you’re getting off the Sugarwall Express.”

Dad had hated the name, saw it as a “desecration” of one of his early films (Thor had seen bits and pieces of _The Sugarland Express_. His father was the best director of all time. That said, a nickname couldn’t do more damage that Dad had already), and Thor hadn’t seen the big deal. He’d been too high and too deep in models to care. Now though he just didn’t care for having his sexploits associated with his father. Funny thing was Tony’s Dad’d produced it, and Tony’d fucking encouraged the tabloids to use it.

Easy for him to embrace it when he’d hopped off years ago now. “One of us has to carry on the legacy,” Tony’d joked with him back at his stag party, and that’d been a damned African safari with Pepper and her friends. He needed Thor to fuck all the rising starlets for him like Tony Stark’s knot could pop without signed and notarized permission from Pepper the second she’d first told him to go fuck himself.

“A bright star burns out twice as quickly,” Thor told him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were creeping around with Legs-olas? We’ve been trying to lock him down to do a soundtrack to the next animated feature for the past three years. Frozen’s EGO is getting lonely.”

“You think he’d get an Emmy, Grammy, and an Oscar?”

“Uh, _know_. When I got your back alley powwow on the horn, I was looking for the SNL logo. You two? You correct interviewers when they try to make a Norwegian connection between these two that he’s Icelandic too. You’re ‘guitar music is the only music.’ Him, I’ve met him. Did you know he left me standing outside in the cold — New York cold — last winter trying to get into the studio he was in to convince him to sign on? How do you stay in the same room as him and not rip each other’s heads off?” Tony snapped his fingers. “Besides the open secret that you two fuck like sex gods.”

“Underneath the shitty music, Loki’s got talent. He doesn’t want the world to know, but I do.”

“This is where I ask when you two are trading bites like you did me back with Pep. But seriously. Don’t. Rarely do you want a relationship to be a PR relationship. I know all about the fulfillment of That Special Someone, and I’m a philanthropist. I want to share the wealth. But this, I want it to be a PR relationship. Of course, after you get me some time with him.”

He’d Eiffel Towered with Tony, but Thor wasn’t going to make Tony’s night. Tony was buying it. There was nothing to buy. They’d all seen him fucking Loki. That was three-quarters of the battle. But Tony didn’t suspect any foul play, and this was someone that’d been brazed and seared in the industry. If Tony believed it, well, it might as well have been the truth.

The shot of tequila Thor took back chased off the pointless introspection.

**L.**

Loki was living vicariously through Natasha and the hair she’d chopped to her chin because he’d never. Not for branding or image, no, but because he’d cut an arm off.

“You look well-rested,” she said, code-word for his soul not being battered down to black ash. Though she’d take care of that. “Either you think this is going to go smoothly or you’ve come to terms with the fact that it never will.”

_The Good, the Bad, the Ugly_ had nothing on these stand-offs in a studio with only their reflections in the first light of the day as witness. New York may have never slept, but Natasha didn’t either. She cocked her chin and told him to show her that choreography she’d zipped in to tailor with him back in October for “Eleven” or what had become of it, and Loki appreciated Natasha for being as good of a mirror as the ones beside them, meaning the internal winces at a certain step that could’ve been that much smoother were reassured by Natasha in case he dared to think better of himself.

The problem with being the greatest artist — vocalist, dancer, performer, all-around showman — of all time wasn’t paparazzi or drugs but how to become greater. “Yes” men were a sure ticket to complacency, but Natasha metaphorically shoved Loki forward when she physically did to straighten up his back. All of her “good”s came with a “but.” “When people look into your choreography, they’ll find me,” she’d told him once. “I aim for perfection.”

Loki did too.

He could imagine Thor dismissing that as being “pointless” and not “real.” Thor still bought into the idea that music-listeners wanted authenticity. The sales data from the past 3-plus decades begged to differ. And one could’ve in theory had perfection and realness. Natasha for instance — Loki’d never let this idea cross his lips — was the ballerina kept in a princess’s jewelry box, the dream of the 1900s little girl or even boy, a prima ballerina by day with the looks to be the talk of the night at the dinner that followed. Loki had modeled himself after that framework, but Natasha had become it. There might’ve been something to be said — mostly by the inner Thor that plagued him — about losing yourself in a role, but when the role was better than what you’d been before, why not?

Loki wouldn’t have considered himself boring by any means, but Loki the first-year art institute student would not have been as beloved as this Loki was. Fans risked their smiles in the rain from New York’s rivers for him, reaching whistle register with their screams when he actually stopped under the umbrella a guard held over he and Sigyn and waved at them (oversaturation was as risky business, but now that he’d added a few years to his career, a wave here and there wouldn’t lower the demand so much.)

A lot of people could sing. A lot of people could dance, could play piano — fewer could’ve played as well as him but still — could hire the best designers and the best stage managers. But none of them were Loki. That was what set him apart, the whole package, not only the music.

This was what Thor failed to grasp.

_“Meet me in Miami.”_

He looked out to the rain blurring New York so beautifully. _“The LA of the East.”_

_“But not LA.”_ Thor tried to demonstrate this with a self-shot: Thor and the action figure chest one degree away from leaning back over the railing out-of-frame into the idyllic sand separating the mainland from the sea.

_“Don’t fall._

_Eric Clapton has that genre of tragedy songs covered.”_

_“Wow_

_That’s fucked up_

_Say sorry”_

_“I will be not coming down there to ruin your stay by pointing out how terrible humidity is.”_

_“It’s Thursday_

_Got to post a Throwback right._

_Been two weeks._

_People mgith not be forgiving for much longer”_

_“People.”_

Loki Seven Degrees of Kevin Baconed that Throwback Thursday, covering a synth-lush, club-jumper Thor’s Warrior band-mate Hogun produced for BIGBANG, the Korean boy-band. That was his comments in Korean for the foreseeable future.

_“Way better than the original_

_But is that saying anything ?_

_Don’t tell Hogun that.”_

As if Hogun Gento would’ve entertained the text or direct message from Loki. Loki couldn’t picture — he could’ve quite well if the picture had been of Thor’s ex-bandmates’ stunned and distraught faces when the video had exploded. The ex-girlfriend alone might’ve turned to stone. She’d had to “accidentally” disclose that she and Thor’d been together in an interview for them to go public and Heimdall had abandoned Loki at Cannes after Thor’s shoulder shrug and unbothered “Yeah, we’re together. What does it matter?” to some paparazzi as confirmation, but Loki’d gotten an immediate joint press release.

Sif had Henry Cavill — his Instagram, which Loki did follow with his own personal one, left bread crumbs of her continued existence as his girlfriend with her voice in the background of the videos of his dog and a hint of black hair at the edge of the frame in some of his self-shots — to comfort her along with the likelihood that what Thor’d semi-publicly done to her, he was privately doing to Loki.

He wasn’t doing anything to Loki since they weren’t actually together. Loki didn’t concern himself with what Thor did if it didn’t end up in blinds that Heimdall had to counter with blinds of his own or in Heimdall’s daily “Thorki” digests. As loyal as the Legion was, there were a lot of attractive people also allied to Thor that he’d be able to charm into keeping quiet because “the press will go after Loki and we don’t want that” after some rolling around.

Sigyn’s conversation with the Concierge to the madam (who was almost certainly Naomi Campbell) laid in wait for Loki the Boyfriend’s time to be up when the good sex wasn’t guaranteed, and free time wasn’t only in cars and on flights. Loki’s junk food fuck phase had come and gone in the frenzy of “Crazy for It” and the hands-on realization that quality far outweighed quantity. If Thor weren’t delivering over the phone and web camera better than most did in-person, it’d be a totally different story.

Thor’s joggers molded his hard-on in Thor’s version of a daily check-in, and Loki kept it to himself by angling the phone away from Wanda and her assistant circling around him, checking the fit of the leather leggings stitched in woven gold.

Wanda’s rings clicked when she snapped and commanded him to walk for her.

His thumb locked his phone before he let his hands fall to their natural places at his sides and proceeded to strut to the end of the room and back. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Leather is my daily bread,” she said. A cascade of cymbal crashes as her infinite bangles slid toward her elbow, tucking her hair behind her ear to get it out of the way of her staring at his crotch. Her squint opened up. The leather’s camouflage only worked at a distance. She went to the other pieces in progress on the rack. “Talking to the rock star?”

Her and her assistant Agatha had a little giggle of a look amongst themselves.

Thor’d texted another picture of his hard-on, this time with a dark gray circle at the head because he too liked to free the cock from the underwear menace at home. _“You can text back w one hand too :*.”_

“He seems nice,” said Wanda with the delectable forest green great coat she’d promised in her sketches.

Loki put his phone face-down on the table nearby. Betraying nothing, he took the coat from the hanger and slid it on. “I seem nice.”

“Nice isn’t the word I’ve heard used.” She corrected the lapels. “He dresses terribly. It reminds me of… those men, the ones that cut down the trees.”

“A lumberjack,” said Agatha. “Flannel is a crime. I don’t trust anyone wearing it.”

“When you look like that, you can wear yellow rain boots and a dinner napkin,” Loki reminded them.

“But because you can doesn’t mean you should. Like you and snake-skin.” Wanda couldn’t be a master of all fashion. She excelled where it mattered like this work of art of a coat and these pants, which were not made for one another but paired well — familiar — and the black leaf headdress coming together for the Met. “I have a leather jacket back in Berlin for him, Thor. Come by sometime. I’ll give it to you then.”

He could get off in a bathroom under five minutes like no one else could. The handful of cum was his reply to Thor.

Thor called, but it was Loki that did all the talking, relating to him the summary of his visit with Wanda while Thor breathed and grunted into the receiver and Loki’s guards and Barton had no clue. Thor might’ve sprained a vocal cord.

“Are you alright?” he asked and shook his head in exasperation at Barton like Thor’d said the absurd thing that he would if this had been one of the regular phone calls Loki had with him in the back of a car.

“Yeah. Talk to you later.”

Thor’s idea of later was after a full sunset and sunrise, but Loki’s phone was vibrating as soon as he put it into his pocket. He answered it, “Forgot to tell me something?”

“So much you have no idea,” said not Thor, too flat and American and smug.

Tony Stark had a more recognizable voice than some of the chart-fillers. That said lots about them, yes, but lots about him too, bad lots.

“It was an event talking to you—“

“EGO. Emmy, Grammy, and an Oscar. Maybe a Tony too if you want to do a Broadway run a decade down the line. Because this property, Jim Cameron is begging me to direct this. Critical darling and billion-dollar box office printer Jim Cameron.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a nice movie, but I’m about to leave for tour. I have to go. Bye.”

He blocked Tony’s number after his fourth time calling.

**Author's Note:**

> I might do chapterly playlists?


End file.
